A few reasons why you should or shouldn't use Windows 7

In the previous blog post we've covered the basics to get a Windows 7 install going, but what are the possible advantages from this situation?

Also, with the competition installed for the desktop OS market, what good reasons would keep you away from a Windows machine?


Pros

1 - Free until June 2010
2 - Fast (or perhaps Vista was too much of a slug anyways)
3 - XP mode - it can run software/drivers meant for older OS versions
4 - Less annoying UAC
5 - Full support for IPv6 - you'll likely understand why this is important within some time
6 - Renewed set of UI controls - those old style menus and graphics with 10 years of existence were all updated
7 - Very cool explorer and orb menu to work with
8 - No more USB/DVD autorun as before
9 - Large hardware support (really huge with the possibility to get online for fetch missing files)
10 - More flexible to install - let it be from USB/Network or whatever, it's easier to deploy.



Cons

1 - Free until June 2010 - so after this that you'll have to dump it altogether, buy a license or tamper the install with some piracy method to workaround the timebomb - not nice.
2 - It's fast but still slugs behind XP in terms of performance and any other current desktop OS.
3 - XP mode is not perfect, some drivers will crash
4 - Memory consumption is still huge when compared to other OS
5 - Viruses, Viruses. Be prepared because all the malware that hammered previous releases will soon catch up.


One of the things that I like the most is the stability of the UI, a bit like OSX this just "feels" solid to work with. They've really smoothed the edges to bring a work OS into life.

The UI redesign was a very nice touch and the default look is very pleasant to work with.

But should MS be praised?

No, it shouldn't.

These improvements derived from flaws that have been criticized heavily - and even the competition has been ahead of the game for some time while MS keeps playing catch up.

This is a desktop OS for the masses but I'm a bit disappointed to see such slow rate on exploring new ways of interaction with the desktop like compiz provides for x-window.

Would be nice to see some of this innovation going mainstream.

:)

Installing Windows 7 on Acer One

Installing Windows 7 inside an Acer One is fun and probably not a waste of your time.






Why?

For two reasons in specific: It's free and it's fast.

- Free because Microsoft allows you to use Windows 7 until June 2010.
- Fast when compared to it's predecessor Windows Vista.

Still not as fast as XP and a lot of memory is consumed but we might consider the pros vs cons in a later blog post.

How?

My short tutorial is just an example so that people have a better notion about a possible way to install.

The first step is downloading the Windows 7 ISO, it's available from MS here:
http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/windows-7/download.aspx

Then, using a separate partition to keep both XP and Win7 working is a good idea in case you need to go back some day. There are plenty of tools to split the Acer One partion, I used the one I trusted the most.

Since I use Ubuntu, there is a USB install tool that creates USB pendisks, one advantage of these pendisks is that they come builtin with a partition editor that resizes NTFS partitions safely (and as simple as it gets) - http://www.ubuntu.com/

After the partition is made available, it's time to launch Windows 7 install setup from the original XP. I created a 40Gb partition thought after installed this new Windows it took about 9Gb worth of used space.


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Installing

Since there is no incorporated DVD reader, we can fake a drive using a virtual DVD drive to mount the ISO image.

My favorite tool for this task on Windows is ImDisk (open source) - http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html#ImDisk

Just install and reboot the machine. Aftwerwards you can right-click on any ISO image and make it available as a fake drive.

Mounting the Windows 7 ISO image we get the install started.

Don't forget to choose a new instalation and select the secondary partition that you have just created and the installation begins.

The install process is a bit lengthy (one hour perhaps) and reboots several times without need for human interaction.

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I was a bit afraid that some drivers wouldn't recognize the Acer One hardware. But there is one good thing about this Windows version - it supports drivers that were created for XP. This is a big plus without doubt.

All that was left to be done was visiting the Acer download site and grab the latest drivers for the Mouse synaptic software that allowed double tapping to be recognized as left-click.

Also, the software to control the fan noise also seemed to work only for XP/Vista - it was nice to see Win7 also asking to run the program in "XP mode" so that it work as expected (and it did).

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In overall

I have very nice words to say about Windows 7 indeed.

This OS is serious and less cluttered than it's precedent. The visual style is good and they have really made enough improvements to convince me as a worthy replacement for XP.

In a time that both OSX and Ubuntu are enjoying from a popularity boost given by the awfull performance demonstrated by Windows Vista, it should be no surprise to see Windows rising back into better days within 2010 if all goes well for them.

It's nice to see some competition.. :)